Infidelity

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Sparky

Popeye, an old fraternity brother of mine, posted a Facebook comment to one of his friends last night. The woman posted her status as, “It’s sad that over 25 years of relationship with someone can be thrown away by 20 minutes in front of a stranger.” I don’t know if she was paraphrasing someone else or not, but that’s not important. What I found disturbing were the comments her “friends” made.

To me, a friend is someone who provides counsel when asked, listens when appropriate and bears your burdens with you as if they were their own. Although I could, I will not infuse today’s discussion with references to Christianity or morality as not everyone shares my beliefs. For that matter, we may share a common belief but not to the same degree. This said, today’s discussion will not be humorous or lighthearted but it will let me vent a frustration.

I do not know Popeye’s friend and do not feel it appropriate for me to post a comment (if I could) to her Facebook wall. However, her “friends” are alive with comments and apparently feel free to spew their ‘supportive’ morality at-will. I gather from her status and a couple of comments that her husband of at least 20+ years cheated on her. She was specific in her post to choose the words ’25 years of relationship’ as opposed to ’25 years of marriage’. To me, that’s telling.

I gather from this brief snapshot of a relationship that they might have been having problems. I do not get the impression she was still in a honeymoon period this far into the relationship and the affair took her by surprise. What I do feel is that perhaps she hoped things would get better and that they may even have been in counseling.

I read her post as a cry from a broken heart looking for healing. “Over 25 years of relationship” tells me they may have had a long friendship and/or engagement before they married. Perhaps they were together three or four years before they married as a way to ‘validate’ their decision as appropriate. Who knows. I don’t think people who live together before they get married stay together longer than those who don’t. For what it’s worth, I strongly, strongly oppose living together before marriage and no, it’s not just because of my religious beliefs.

If you’ve been in a committed, monogamous relationship for over two years, you’ve passed the honeymoon period. I can’t cite it right here right now, but research shows that many relationships go through a period anywhere from 6 months to 2 years where the sex is frequent and the acceptance of the other person’s quirks is constant. After two years, however, the sex and intimacy falls off and those cute little quirks become obnoxious personality traits that seem insurmountable. After three years, you have to make the relationship work. Both of you.

I can’t stress enough that I don’t know who this woman is or what issues she faced in her marriage. Her friends should know, however. But that’s not what I read. Again, I understood her post to be a cry of heartfelt pain; a plea for compassion in a hurtful situation. Instead, I read (all paraphrased, by the way):

* Don’t worry about it; life’s too short.

* The best revenge is living life to the fullest. That will show him!

* I know you’re hurting now but when you’re ready say the word and I can introduce you to someone who will appreciate you.

* Memorial Day Weekend’s almost here! Call me and we’ll go bar hopping!

* This is the push that you needed to move on. Let him go.

* I’m sorry to hear about this but maybe now you’ll know it’s over.

* It gets easier every day. Don’t let this get you down.

And so it went. She had over a dozen comments when I read the post. All I could think was, “What are these people saying?!?” Granted, we can’t see the messages or the one-on-one e-mails sent between people, but I was shocked. Not one person offered a word of encouragement from my perspective. There were offers to help ‘get revenge’ by dating and drinking; advice to ‘forget about’ the last 25+ years of her life and ‘move on’; suggestions that ‘it was about time’ she noticed something was amiss and she should have removed herself from the relationship long ago. Where was the compassion?

If I grieve because the 12 year old dog I’ve had since a puppy died today, would you tell me I shouldn’t have had a dog to begin with because they die? I don’t think so. You’d tell me to remember the good times, treasure the moments we were able to spend together and that grieving is good, natural and healthy. How is it any different with a human relationship?

An affair is a horrible thing to happen in any relationship but it doesn’t necessarily mean the end. People do and say all kinds of hurtful things when they’re hurting. I believe the saying, “Hurt people hurt people” but why encourage them to hurt? Would you tell me I shouldn’t have been married and shouldn’t have had kids because statistically my marriage would end in divorce? I hope not.

I think if this woman had accepted the end of her relationship before the affair the post would have read differently. I also think if her husband had a history of cheating and her friends knew about it, the comments would have been different. My impression is that the marriage was on the rocks and the husband had, perhaps, the first affair of which his wife became aware. But again, I don’t know. And neither do you.

We don’t know the background related to the post. Perhaps she had turned cold and distant and her husband, seeking to validate his worth as a person, sought the comfort of someone he saw as compassionate and caring. What if the husband was just a screw-up from the get-go and this was the first affair he in which he was caught? We don’t know.

Perhaps most troubling to me is the lack of respect her friends have shown her. They were together over 25 years. Were her friends encouraging her to leave the whole time? Were her friends offering to take her bar-hopping or to meet someone new the whole time? At what point did her friends seem to know better than her what she wanted or needed? More importantly, at what point did the woman ask for everyone to comment publicly on her life? On this I know I’m a hypocrite, but I’m trying to make a point.

Again, to me, a friend is someone who provides counsel when asked, listens when appropriate and bears your burdens with you as if they were their own. Which of her friends offered an ear to listen or a shoulder upon which to cry? None that I saw. No one said they would stand with her and help her through this regardless of the outcome. The only offers given were for revenge and starting over. Perhaps the woman wants neither revenge nor to start over with someone new. What if she just wants a fresh start with her husband? That, apparently, is not an option her friends will consider. Everyone knows better than her it seems.

I noticed she did not call her husband a foul name or curse him to hell. She did not ask for pity or claim moral superiority. She just cried from the heart. Unfortunately, in my opinion, she cried to the wrong people and I can empathize with her. Unless you’re going through, today, exactly what I’m going though, you don’t understand. Your situation is different than mine. Don’t come out of your white picket fenced, perfectly manicured yard to come down the street and tell me how to fix my flower bed. But people will and people do, all thinking they’re helping when actually what you need is healing.

The best pop-culture example I can cite is Seinfeld. In one episode, Kramer wants to break up with his girlfriend. Jerry and Elaine tell Kramer exactly what they think of her and that it’s ‘about time’ he dumped her. So he did. And then he had second thoughts and they got back together. Where did that leave Jerry and Elaine with respect to his girlfriend in Kramer’s eyes? If this woman wants to forgive her husband for his affair and continue to work on the relationship, where does that leave the friends that encouraged her to leave him?

If I’m your friend, it’s not my place to offer advice if you don’t ask. Neither is it my place to say, “I told you so” if you choose to follow your own path and later accept and follow my advice. My responsibility to you is to be a trustworthy, loyal, faithful friend with whom you can laugh or cry and know I’m laughing or crying with you. But if I’m telling you how much better you’ll feel by listening to me offer unsolicited advice when I haven’t gone through the same heartbreak as you, I’m not your friend. I’m just trying to elbow my way into your life.

That’s it. I think I’m done venting. Thank you for your time.

The Cave

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Sparky

I have a Facebook friend who reads this blog. I spoke with him this morning and he asked me to clarify my reference to “The Cave of Wonder”. I recognize he might not be alone in his confusion so, albeit very personal, let me put the term into perspective.

My wife and I separated a year ago. Having no where else to go but my office, I converted part of the mail processing room (with folders, sealers, labeling machine, computers, filing cabinets, etc.) into a sanctuary. In a 10′ x 14′ room I have a 5′ x 8′ space from which I contemplate life. Since most of my business is conducted via e-mail and I rarely interact face-to-face with people on any given day, the room has become my hermit cave. But it’s not a hiding place. I don’t “hang out” there to escape people, life, or day-to-day events. My hermit cave isn’t really like the guy who has given up on life and people and wants to escape everything. My cave is more like a spiritual center of stillness and quiet from which I think thoughts and ponder.

It is not the “Cave of Wonders”, plural. There’s nothing “wonderful” about it. It does not contain collections of things I’ve saved, paintings of exotic landscapes or things that make you think, “that’s cool.” When I refer to the Cave of Wonder I don’t really mean a physical place. It’s like heaven. If someone asks you where heaven is, you more than likely will point up to the sky and say, “It’s up there, somewhere.” Yes, there are “the heavens” from a cosmological perspective, but there’s also a “heaven” from a theological viewpoint. The “Cave of Wonder” is my office area (particularly my sanctum sanctorum) but more specifically, it’s the state of mind I enter into at the end of the day.

If you know me, you know I’m well beyond a Type-A personality when it comes to certain things. With other things I flat-line, I don’t care. But I really do believe that you can’t judge a book by its cover. I might appear to be laid-back and easy-going, but don’t let it fool you. I might be having a full-on, total meltdown stress attack because I’m about to miss a deadline but you’d never know it. At the end of the first part of my work day, before I change gears for the evening shift, I wonder. When my day is done, before I go to sleep, I wonder. I wonder a lot. I wonder if I wonder too much.

I wonder why God put me here. No, not in my office but here, on earth. I know I have a mission. I know He put me here for a reason. I wonder what that reason is. One of the guys I meet with on Saturday mornings told our group today that I am a real inspiration for him. He knows my situation and what I’m going through. He recently lost his job and, as a consequence, his wife left him. He told the group as he goes about his daily life now he asks himself two questions: “What does the Bible say about how he should deal with a situation” and “How would {Sparky} deal with this”. I’m certain he meant that from his heart as a compliment, but that’s an awesome amount of responsibility I didn’t know I had in someone else’s life. I wonder, is this why God has me going through the problems in my marriage and my career? So that I might minister, mentor and inspire other men? I don’t know. Am I supposed to know? Do I want other men looking to me for inspiration when, in truth, they’re the ones I respect for their candidness and faithfulness?

I wonder if other men have the same issues I have. I want my children to see my true character. I hope when they look at me they see someone driven by honesty and integrity. I have been lied to, deceived by and forsaken by people very, very close to me. I want to break the cycle of “hurt people hurt people”. I have been hurt deeply more than once. I wonder if I have ever hurt anyone as badly as I have been hurt. If so, I sincerely apologize.

I honestly pray that when my kids look at me or think back to this period of time they can see my example. “When such-and-such happened to my dad, do you know what he did? He didn’t lie, he didn’t cheat, he didn’t steal, he didn’t deceive us. He didn’t dishonor my mother or me. He didn’t give anyone any reason to think he was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. He held his head up and said that even though it sucked right now, it wouldn’t be like this forever. He had the courage to have faith.” That’s what I want my children to think on and realize that it isn’t really me that kept that standard. God gave me (all of us, actually) that standard as basic common sense. If a lie got you into trouble, a lie won’t get you out (the truth will set you free). If your spouse cheated on you, cheating on them doesn’t make it “even” (two wrongs don’t make a right). Me having a bad day doesn’t mean I should ruin your day (I can’t think of a cute quip to throw in here).

Jacob and Job are two Old Testament men from whom I draw a lot of inspiration. Both had issues. Depending on the situation I may feel more Jacob-like than Job-like. My rule of thumb is this: If something unexpectedly bad happens and nothing good comes from it in a short period of time, it’s a Job-like test of faith. If something good does come from it, it’s a Jacob-like reward of faith. Regardless, both are tests of integrity and accountability. I can cite two examples from the same event: A long-time customer of mine hired a new buyer. Since the new buyer had the authority and the responsibility to solicit and secure new contracts on behalf of the company, they used my products and pricing to leverage other companies and obtain better pricing from them. I was never given the opportunity to bid because, according to the buyer, it would not have been fair to ask others to bid against me and not award the contract to one of them. The issue wasn’t my quality, my turn-around, my customer service or my pricing. The issue was the buyer looking to make a name for himself within the company as an aggressive go-getter. That, to me, was a Job moment. By his own admission my company had done nothing wrong at all. We had better delivery times, higher quality and better pricing than the company that replaced us. But the bottom line was that we were replaced because we *could* be replaced. I let it go.

A year went by and the owner of that company called me. Very, very unhappy, he laid into me about how I had screwed up a job so bad recently they almost lost a licensing contract. I let him vent. When he was done, I politely asked him what the heck he was talking about since it had been over a year since I had done any work with his company. Very long story short, not only did we once again take over the work we had been doing previously, I also became more integrated in that company’s production planning process in all aspects, from design to overseas production to local assembly and fulfillment. The buyer was fired. This was a Jacob moment. Rather than throw it back in my old customer’s face and tell him to pound sand, I worked with him on how to fix a problem that was never mine, how to prevent future issues related to that event and how to address and preempt long-term problems from overseas factories. I went from nothing to being a de facto production manager in the course of one phone call. Totally Jacob-like, totally God. So it makes me wonder.

I wonder if things had not occurred as they did between my wife and me if any of this would have happened. My wife and I attended the same church for twelve or thirteen years before I was asked to move out. Had I stayed, I probably would not have been as involved with the guys on Saturday morning as I am currently. Am I really an inspiration for other people? Why would you lie about something as trivial as that? We’re a Saturday morning men-only Bible study group. No one there has a “posse”. We don’t have “people”. You don’t come with an “entourage”. We are very sensitive to cults of personality and don’t claim any one member of our congregation, our senior pastor included, has any more or less authority or divine appointment from, to, or by God than anyone else.

I was honored and humbled when someone asked me to be their accountability partner while they struggle with an addiction. I tried to turn him to someone who either has the same issues or experience with the same issues and he wouldn’t have it. He only wanted me because he felt God had sent me to him. This has been a two-way blessing. All I have to do is be me. Since I can’t be him that’s easy enough, but I do need to be sensitive to his struggles. According to him, I have helped him in more ways than he can count. Not too long ago he asked what kinds of hobbies I had when I was a kid. I told him. A week later he asked if I knew where he might find a hobby store. I told him. The next week he came to me and said he had a new hobby building and painting scale model die-cast metal cars (which, by the way, is not something I did so I’m not worried he’s becoming a Mini-Me).

I saw him today and he said the relationship between him and his wife was much, much better than it had been in years, all because of the model building. Because it’s something they can do together, his wife helps him. Because she’s with him and they’re working on projects together, they talk more. Because they’re talking more he doesn’t have the time or the desire to fall back into his addiction. Because he knows he’s an addict and he knows I care and he knows I’d answer the phone if he called, he feels strong enough to make it on his own. What did I do? Nothing. It was all God. But I wonder: Is that why I’m here?

I wonder if I’m a conceited, pompous ass. I know I’m no better than anyone else. I don’t think I have a false sense of humility. If you invite me to your house for dinner, I’ll do the dishes. I’ll clean your oven if you’d like. I don’t do it because it makes me look good. I don’t do it because I’m a kiss-ass. I do it because I can and it’s helpful. If you’ve been working to make a meal for us to enjoy and to make me feel welcome and all those other warm and fuzzy feelings, let me return the favor. If I can’t pay you for the time and money you’ve invested in the meal, let’s turn it into something more than just a host/guest scenario. Let me do something for you so that we have a shared experience of sacrifice (yours in making the meal and mine in cleaning all that crap out of the oven you’ve left there for the past two years). It really doesn’t bother me, don’t let it bother you.

I wonder how long I’ll walk in the dark valley before me. I work community outreach programs a couple of times a month. I talk to homeless people and give thanks that I have a roof over my head. I have a car. I can cook up a mean batch of rice whenever I want. But there are a couple of homeless couples I actually envy. These people have nothing except what they can fit in the two or three shopping carts they’ve roped together. They truly have next to nothing. But they have each other. One of the couples said they were married in a homeless camp by the minister of a church that did a feed-the-homeless program. The church members paid for the license, the ceremony and the food. They wanted to have the ceremony at the church but the couple wanted to do it at the camp so their friends could be there. It’s awesome. They are not the freeway off-ramp “will work for food” homeless. They are much worse off. But when you look at them and how they interact with each other, you know it’s love. I look at them in wonder: When this test is over, will my wife and I be able to have the same sparkle in our eyes? I wonder.

I wonder about all kinds of things. How my kids are doing, where I’ll be living in the next month or two, whether or not the decision I made today about something will help or hurt someone who might look up to me. But I don’t dwell on it. I don’t want to sound Yoda-ish, but dwelling on the negative leads to questioning yourself which leads to questioning your faith which leads to fear which leads to hate. When I think about the negative things happening in my life right now I just chalk it up to a temporary setback and keep moving. That’s really all you can do. I guess I could start drinking to escape reality or start smoking as a “stress relief” and blame someone for giving me the stress in the first place, but the reality is it’s on me. Run and hide or stand and fight. Sometimes I know it’s easier to run and hide, but then I wonder: Is that the example I want to set for my wife and kids? No. I wonder if I’m cut-out to be an example for other men. After all, their problems are their problems, right? Wrong. Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes, to a certain extent, I am. But I wonder if they’ll see it’s not by me alone that I choose to help but by God’s greater design.

And so you have it: The Cave of Wonder is singular, not plural. It is both a physical place and a mindset. As it has been for the past year and will be for the foreseeable future, it’s also my home. Welcome to it.

Conflicted

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Sparky

Today I face an ethical dilemma. It may not seem like much and you may think you have the “best” answer but like many things, it’s a personal problem I have to address and overcome. However, I would like your input.

I went to lunch at one of the finer dining establishments in my fair ville today. Okay, it was the Del Taco drive-through but it was still better than the batch of plain brown rice I’m making for dinner tonight. Anyway, allow me to start with a complaint: People.

I am not better than you. I do not for one second believe you exist to serve me and make my life comfortable and do my bidding. We all have daily trials as much as we have daily victories. If I can help you with a trial or walk with you through hardship, ask. I would love nothing more than to help you celebrate a victory, regardless of its size. We all need victories. But there are those among us that turn their trials or hardships into true tests of courage, patience and restraint for the rest of us. Yes, I’m talking about the people who can’t make up their minds at the fast-food drive-through order kiosk.

My kids have heard me say often enough, “It’s a McDonald’s. The menu didn’t change from when you were here two days ago.” Substitute your favorite fast-food establishment as appropriate and it still holds true. To be fair, some very popular regional restaurants with the drive-through option may be unknown to visitors. For example, here in Southern California’s Inland Empire we have a chain of restaurants called Farmer Boys. I would not expect a NASCAR-loving, beer-swilling, cigarette-smoking, country music-listening, drawl-speaking, Pro Rodeo-watching visitor from Alabama to know about Farmer Boys. For that matter, I was flabbergasted by the sheer volume of Bojangle’s restaurants (one on every corner) when I toured through the Carolinas a couple of years ago. Regional is regional. I get that. And stupid generalizations are stupid, but it helped paint a picture for you.

As far as I’m concerned, you go to a drive-through for speed as well as convenience. The spelling “thru”, to me by the way, conveys a unique sense of ignorance like writing “ok” when the word is spelled “okay”. But I digress. Since you’ve chosen the drive-through option, the issue of consistency has been established. You wouldn’t go to Subway looking for a bucket of chicken just like you wouldn’t go to KFC looking for a roast beef sandwich. You chose that restaurant’s drive-through because you know what they sell and you want it faster and in a more convenient manner than going inside.

Assuming you’ve never been to a Pup-N-Taco before, I have a high amount of confidence your first visit would not be through the drive-through. Even if you’ve heard great things about the place, you’ll want to take a minute to peruse the menu and make a selection from what “sounds” good or what you see others eating. The first-time interaction of seeing the menu, seeing the kitchen layout, getting an overall “feel” for the place and taking in the sounds and smells will establish a baseline from which you will later judge your subsequent drive-through experience. Again, I think the chances of you going to Pup-N-Taco your first time and ordering something at the drive-through kiosk simply because I said you might like it are slim.

Oh, but there are those who live to prove me wrong. In fact, I sat behind one today for quite some time. It’s a freaking Del Taco. Like Taco Bell, they serve pretend Mexican food. Nothing (except the salsa, maybe) is hand-made. It’s all processed, pre-packaged crap from somewhere else. In my mind it’s like a scene from The Simpson’s. They go to the county fair and all the different ethnic groups have food tents from which you can order their country’s specialty. All the orders are routed through one location and filled by someone dipping a ladle into a cauldron of something and pouring it into a bowl or plate. This is then placed on a tray and taken by conveyer belt back to the tent from which the order was placed. That pretty much describes fast-food drive-through restaurants in general: Generic slop from somewhere else presented to you at their window.

First-time visitor or someone looking for a change of pace, I don’t know. But the woman today did as much to delay the progress of mankind in general as possible. She could not decide. I could understand if she had kids in the car and wanted to keep everyone happy. It didn’t appear as though she did. I could also understand if she had multiple people in the car (like a church car pool or something) and everyone wanted something unique. She looked like she was alone. Alone and curious.

“What comes with a number five?” Well, let’s see. There’s a picture of it not three feet in front of you. It looks like it comes with a this, a that, and a thingamajig. “Oh, I don’t want that. What comes with a number six?” Well, here in Western society we often treat things in a linear, progressive manner. I’ll look either right next to or immediately below the number five and–oh, there it is, the elusive number six. Huh. The picture indicates it contains a whozit, a whatzit and a whachamacallit. “Okay, I’d like a number six but what comes on the whozit?”

I know the eight inch by eight inch picture does not have the finest detail in the world, but it looks like a burrito that contains ground beef, refried beans, cheese, a hot sauce of some type and a tortilla. “Instead of ground beef can I get chicken?” Why yes, you can. We call it the number eleven. “What comes with the number eleven?” A chicken whozit, a whatzit and a whachamacallit. “Oh, okay. Yes, I’d like the number eleven with chicken. And instead of the whachamacallit can I change it to a thingamajig?” Yes, you can do that.

But now you’re off the regularly numbered combination menu and into our entree menu items. If you substitute the whachamacallit for the thingamajig it’s thirty cents extra. “Okay, let’s do that. And can I get that with the really large drink?” Yes, but that will be an additional fifty-five cents. Your total is seven dollars and sixteen cents. Will that be all for you today or would you like to try a tooth-rotting straight sugar dessert? “No, that’s it. Thank–Oh, wait! Can I substitute my large drink for a shake?” And on it went until she finally nit-picked her order to get exactly what she wanted.

So, having had enough time to become fairly well acquainted with every detail of the backside of her vehicle, she pulled forward. She left the comfort of the drive-through kiosk and entered the frightening (yet aptly named) Realm of Reality: The left turn to the window.

I have a fairly hard and fast rule of driving any vehicle. To keep this rule means you have demonstrated the aptitude and higher-level thought processes required of a licensed driver. To violate this rule you must, at some point, be punished. The rule: If you can’t park it, you can’t drive it. No, she wasn’t trying to park her vehicle. She was trying to negotiate a single left turn so she could enter the straight-away in front of the payment window. But if you can’t do that simple task I guarantee you she could not parallel park that vehicle.

She was in a Cadillac SUV that clearly was too much for her. I don’t care about the make of car she drove. It could have been a 1970s-era Chevrolet Suburban or her 2012 Cadillac. The point is that the vehicle greatly exceeded her driving ability. Someone should have taken the keys away from her. Unlike Disneyland, the Realm of Reality does not allow for a center rail down the lane which takes control of your vehicle and keeps you pointed in the correct direction if you over- or under-steer. Unlike the go-cart track, you can’t just keep your foot on the gas, bumping off one curb to the other until the ride’s done. You have to actually participate in and learn from the driving experience.

No kidding, I’ve seen guys in trucks with trailers go through a drive-though without rubbing rubber on either the truck or the trailer. The woman today turned a simple left turn into a twelve-point back-and-forth event from which I was getting sick watching. The fact she was a woman had nothing to do with it. The fact that she did not have confidence and or experience in what she was doing is the bigger issue. I’ll bet she took her driving test in a small sub-compact car she borrowed from someone. There is no way she parallel-parked a vehicle the size of a Jawa Sandcrawler when she took her driver’s test.

But that’s not my issue today. That was a minor annoyance that did nothing but cause me to re-think my food choice and hope to be good later on. Today’s event happened at the window.

I pulled up and recognized the same voice from the squawk-box as belonging to the kid hanging out the window looking for payment. I handed him my credit card and he handed me my beverage. He disappeared for a moment and re-appeared with a straw before once again returning to his spider hole. A short while later another uniformed person appeared and handed me my lunch order. She wished me a good day and started to shut the window. I asked for if she had my credit card and she held it up, saying, “This one?”

Seriously, what would she have done if I said, “No, the other one?” I was the only one in line. Specifically, I was the only one at the window. Do they have a bunch of cards they’ve kept from other customers? Is there a little bucket of unclaimed ATM, debit and credit cards on the other side of the window I can’t see? What kind of question is that, “this one?” Anyway, I told her yes, that was the one.

Then she asked for my name. What? It didn’t matter one iota to them who I was when I handed them the card in the first place. I could have charged twenty five dollars worth of tacos and burritos and they would not have asked to see my identification, let alone asked my name. Assuming she was the new window HMFIC (Head Mother Flunkee In Charge), I told her my name. I was tempted to say Al Sharpton or Huey Lewis but I didn’t. I don’t think she would have seen the humor as much as I. With my name (luckily) matching what was written, the card was returned and I drove off.

Then it occurred to me that I never received a copy of my receipt. I would have expected it with the drink, but I received the drink concurrent with issuing the card. The next opportunity would have been when I was given the straw. But all I received was the straw. As I returned to my combination office / dungeon, I started thinking that I didn’t see the girl put a receipt in the bag. That started my first pangs of guilt: What if I hadn’t paid for my meal? Not wanting to dwell on it, I pushed it out of my mind until I sat at my desk.

There is no receipt anywhere in the bag. I never received one. So, did the first guy run my card and just forget to give me a receipt? I won’t know until Monday. I know the girl didn’t run my card.

I am not as happy as I might have been when I was younger, glad that I had a “free meal” because they screwed up. I have no idea what policy Del Taco has regarding “short” cash drawers at the drive-through. It really bothers me to think that some kid might get docked the cost of at least my meal because he got involved in something else and didn’t run my card. That one issue alone is my problem. Kid number one did what you would expect: He repeated my total and took my card. Kid number two did what you might expect: Saw a card on a ledge inside the store and returned it, perhaps assuming the card had already been run.

Am I going to go back to the store and have them “Z”-out a register so I can pay them and feel better? No. Am I going to take the money I would have paid them and buy lunch for someone else? Maybe, but that won’t relieve me of my concern. And no, I’m not going to give you the money and let you “take care of it” on my behalf.

Seriously, what would you do? I can’t just let this one go. Potentially there’s one, maybe two, high school students trying to make something of themselves on a Sunday afternoon who might have to pick up the cost of my lunch. I feel like I just did a dine-and-dash, only much worse. If I had intentionally deceived or defrauded them out of the cost of my lunch, I am totally responsible. If they had handed me my lunch and never asked for my card it doesn’t change the result: I know I should have paid but I didn’t even make an attempt. This is different.

I tried to pay. For all I know, I did pay and they just didn’t give me a receipt. I am certain some of you will tell me just to suck it up and enjoy the free food, but I’m interested in hearing from the more mature and responsible readers I know are out there. What would you do?

California Sucks – Reason 3

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Sparky

This state needs a serious change in leadership. People laughed when it was proposed the southern California counties (specifically excluding Los Angeles) split from the existing state and form a new state of Southern California.

If you look at California’s voting demographics, you’ll see all the tree-hugging, socialist, “You Owe Me”, peaceniks live along the coasts from Los Angeles on up. Sacramento has a huge cluster of pod people there also, but they’re too far north (and too far out there) to care about the rest of us. The vast majority of inland California voters are conservative, law-abiding, “stand for something or you’ll fall for anything” people. This can best be summarized by looking at one of California’s most divisive election issues, Proposition 8.

Prop 8 was a voter initiative that wanted to firmly establish and retain the concept of marriage as a union between one male and one female. Unhappy with the near identical language in the “civil union” statutes that guaranteed equality for same-sex partners, the state devolved into throwing stones back-and-forth over the word “marriage” and, for me at least, it’s religious connotations. Regardless, check the map. If you have an image blocker on your browser you can see the image here.

See the green? If we were to change that color to red, what would that represent to you? If we changed the yellow to blue, does that change your perspective? Yes, I’m trying to draw a parallel here between Republicans and Democrats and no, they didn’t vote along party lines for or against Prop 8. My purpose here is to graphically illustrate how the population centers that would tend to be red or blue are divided between the coast and the inland valley, mountain areas. Los Angeles county is the lowest patch of yellow on the coast and the Mono Lake lovers are hugging Nevada.

So we have a problem. Check the numbers. The reason why California is a political wasteland is because the numbers are so close. True, the example shown is Prop 8, but the numbers pretty much ring true for just about any state issue. We can’t get anything done here. If we were to split the state and allow the southern counties to keep their tax revenues rather than sending them off to Sacramento so they can subsidize Oakland and San Francisco’s social service programs, we’d be doing a lot better. The San Bernardino / Riverside County areas known as the Inland Empire have one of the highest unemployment rates in the state but because the population density is less than Oakland, we lose. It ticks me off. It grinds my gears.

But why, specifically, does California suck today? Yes, it’s that old theme of illegals, drivers licenses and political pandering. There was an article today (here) in which the Los Angeles City police chief said his officers were not going to enforce the current law that requires them to impound vehicles of unlicensed drivers. Why? Because it’s not fair. It might limit or restrict their ability to get to or search for work. Uhhh…what?

California already turns a blind eye to illegal immigration. It’s a Federal issue and the State doesn’t have the right to enforce Federal immigration laws. Let me take that one step farther and say the state wouldn’t enforce those laws even if required to do so. Unlike Arizona, California would never consider laws that would require illegal aliens seeking to enter our public school system to show they live in the local district. Pay the same tuition at a college or university? Are you insane? That would mean undermining the DREAM Act.

I have had the immigration rant with just about everyone that knows me. I believe in immigration the way it was run even as late as the 1950s. If you want to come here, fill out the forms and get in line. Have a sponsor. Get a job. Two of my grandmothers had to do that and they were married to a U.S. born-and-raised citizen! They tried to deport one grandmother back to Australia and my Peruvian grandmother had issues because my grandfather was often out of the country flying aircraft between Los Angeles; Lima, Peru, and; Sao Paulo, Brazil. I’m not going to go into my overall feelings on this but I will say it’s highly disingenuous of our country to require people from countries with whom we do not share a common border to process through the system yet we pander to others.

But back to today’s issue. I have no doubt in my military mind that if I was pulled over in the People’s Republic of Los Angeles and produced my insurance card, my registration card and my Disneyland season pass from last year as a photo ID, they’d impound my car. It wouldn’t matter that I could recite to them my driver’s license number, my home address or my height and weight. My car would be on the back of a tow truck on the way to the ~~revenue station~~ impound yard in a heartbeat. I really don’t understand the reasoning behind the decision.

We’re told constantly it may be illegal to hire day laborers from the street corners. Forgetting the personal safety and risk you take, the state loses tax revenue. If we want to stop complaining about the number of jobs citizens have lost to illegals, stop hiring them. Some organizations post lists on the internet of companies known to hire or cater to the “undocumented” crowd. If you want to keep your job or create a job, boycott those businesses. If we get enough economic sanctions against employers (either by increasing penalties or citizen boycotts), they won’t hire illegals and they will magically self-emigrate back to their homeland.

But no amount of pushing an employer will seriously induce an individual to act now and act with decisive finality. If you know you cannot obtain a driver’s license in this state unless you can prove you have a right to be here, that’s a concern. If you know you might be subject to Federal identity theft laws if you use a false or stolen social security number to obtain employment, that’s a concern. But concerns really don’t mean anything. Every time you stuff a cigarette in your face you might be concerned about lung cancer but it doesn’t stop you from lighting up.

Just because I might get caught doesn’t really mean I need to lose any sleep over it. However, if I’m on my way home and I get pulled over and I have my car towed and impounded, THAT gets my attention. If I have to pay the tow charges AND the impound charges for my vehicle as well as a fine for driving the car without a license, I’m impacted directly. How will I work? Who freaking cares, as far as I’m concerned. How will you pick up the little ones from day care? Not my problem.

For me, this is not a humanitarian issue. Don’t cry to me about how as a Christian I’m charged with saving the world and all the people in it. This is not the same. Requiring foreigners to obtain documentation for admission into this country gives them certain rights and responsibilities. Knowing and obeying our laws keeps the playing field level. Breaking a law and claiming ignorance of the law because you didn’t know about it is the wrong answer. But let’s move on.

If the requirement is that you either pay-to-play (by getting a driver’s license legally) or you don’t drive, you don’t drive. Using the new Los Angeles philosophy, it seems any high school student 16 or older could tour around the county without having to have a license. All they need is their school I.D. Mom and Dad have their name on the registration and insurance, so the car shouldn’t be towed, right? True, they might fine the student for driving without a license but how can they do that to Betty Sue or LaTonia when they won’t do it to Belinda? Obviously, my comment has racial overtones, but my point is this: How can you say all you have to do is provide a picture ID and they won’t tow your car? Idiots.

California sucks.

Cowards

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Sparky

I had a discussion today with another one of those “wouldda, shouldda, couldda” folks that drives me insane. The issue? Military service.

I was born into an Army family and lived in a number of interesting places because of it. I joined the Army at 18 and spent the next 20 years doing all kinds of fascinating things that I won’t go into here. The point? I did what I felt needed to be done. It was truly the only life I had known so it seemed natural to return to it as soon as I was able. But because that life was, by default, compartmentalized (especially people and emotions) I’ll focus on people today.

For me and my kind growing up, there were lots of different groups of people. First, of course, were the military service members. Army, then Marines, then Navy. The Air Force really served as a charter airline for the Army (just like the Navy provided cruise-liners for the Marines) and didn’t get much respect from us Army brats. The Coast Guard didn’t count as a military service (except in WWII) because they fell under the Department of Transportation (after having been moved out of the Treasury Department, by the way). I’m certain every military branch had it’s own set of standards in which their service held the number one slot but since they were all posers anyway, it didn’t matter.

After the military service members were the dependents. Spouses and children were dependents. They were significantly lower on the totem pole than the service member, but at least we could buy cool crap at the post exchange.

Back in the day, being a dependent could suck really, really bad. Since it was the Vietnam era, almost all of my friends’ fathers were the service member, so where you stood in the social hierarchy depended on a few specific factors:
1. What was your dad’s rank?
2. Was your father Regular Army or drafted?
3. Was he a “soldier” or a REMF?
4. How many tours had he done in ‘Nam?

Due to segregation, we never hung out with any officers kids. My dad was a non-commissioned officer (NCO) and very proud of it. Although the Army ensured that officers, NCOs and junior enlisted soldiers all lived in different areas of the base (with significantly different standards of living, of course), I doubt my friends and I would have chosen to hang out with Zeros anyway. For clarification, enlisted ranks in the military start with the letter “E”. Officer ranks start with the letter “O”. Because the “O” looked like the number 0, we called officers and their dependents “Zeros”. I imagine it’s changed, but “Zero” was a derogatory term.

Anyway, back to segregation for a moment. I’m certain any military brat can tell a different story but me and my friends didn’t have issues of race. Segregation was by rank, not by race. I don’t ever recall as a kid hearing any of our dads refer to another person by a racial slur. Staff Sergeant Hernandez was either “Sergeant Hernandez” or the SDNCO (staff duty NCO). He wasn’t a “wetback” or a “spic” or anything else. Sergeant First Class Morris wasn’t “the black guy” or a “nigger.” He was “Sergeant Morris”. I think if any of our dads heard us refer to someone by a racial slur we would have had our asses kicked first by the dad that heard it then by our own fathers. As a child of the ’60s coming into maturity in the ’70s, racism wasn’t our issue. Whether you were a Zero or not was. And yes, if you screwed up and someone else’s dad caught you, he administered the first round of corporal punishment before you got sent to your dad for round two. No questions asked.

If your dad was Regular Army, you had it going on. Back in the day before your social security number became your number, you had a service number. Almost everyone remembers the old line about the three things you have tell a captor if you’re taken as a prisoner of war: Name, Rank and Service Number. No? You remember Name, Rank and Social Security Number? Newbie. “Real” soldiers, those that volunteered to join, had service numbers that started with “RA” for Regular Army. Soldiers that either volunteered to avoid the draft or were drafted had service numbers that started with “USA”. Since my dad joined during and did time in Korea, he had an RA number. That fact put me socially above some other kid who’s dad might have had more rank but only volunteered to join because he thought he might get drafted. We still accepted those kids but we let them know their dads were weak.

If your dad was a “soldier”, we knew it by his Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). It might have been called something different back then, but if your dad was Infantry, he was a soldier. Infantry, Armor (tanks), Artillery–those guys were the top spots. On one of his tours in Vietnam my dad was in Psychological Warfare working with the Special Forces, so I got to claim that honor also. If your dad was a cook, a supply guy or anything in the Adjutant General’s Corps or Finance, they were a REMF. Just like “Zero”, “REMF” (pronounced like it reads, remf) was derogatory. It stood for Rear Echelon Mother “Effer” and meant the chances of your dad actually seeing combat time were little to none. If your dad was a REMF, you were a REMF. It would be really bad if your dad was a personnel officer of a unit because then he’d be both a Zero and a REMF and your social status would suck with us. But since we didn’t associate with Zeros, we’d never see you anyway.

Today the outdated term REMF has been replaced by FOBBIT. If you’re a FOBBIT and proud, to me you’re still a REMF, loser.

How many tours had your dad done? Ideally, at least one. The last gasp of hope you had for any type of social recognition was if your dad had “punched his ticket” in Vietnam. If your dad had never been there, did not have orders sending him there soon or planned to ETS (get out of the service) before he got sent there, you were nothing with us. We would sooner play human-target lawn darts with a bunch of Zeros than a Non-Dep (Non-Deployable, Non-Deployed) REMF-loving waste of skin like you.

Non-Deps were vile. Even Zeros hated Non-Deps. It was universal. The best I can equate it to today was during Desert Storm. A female medical officer (Army, unfortunately) was interviewed on a local (Los Angeles) television station. In uniform, crying uncontrollably, she looked at the camera and said when she joined, no one told her she would have to go to war. That image was burned into my head and will stay with me forever. On my first day of basic training, a drill sergeant stood in front of us and told us that if we weren’t told one day we might be called upon to kill someone, perhaps by running a bayonet through their chest cavity in hand-to-hand combat, we were in the wrong place. How you can be in the Army–and an officer at that–and cry because “no one told you” is an outright lie.

Okay, so that basically established the pecking order within the accepted group of military branches and dependents. Then what?

We recognized two types of civilians. One had a capital “C” and the other was lower case. A Department of Defense (or Department of the Army, etc.) Civilian (capital “C”) was a technician. Oftentimes they were separated or retired service members that scored a sweet job doing stuff for the Army and getting paid for it. My teachers were Department of the Army (DA) Civilians. The people that worked at the MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) office that rented us everything from rowboats and fishing poles to horses and guitars were Civilians. Civilians (capital “C”) and their dependents were okay by us. In Germany, for example, the father of a friend of mine separated from service and returned to marry a German woman. I don’t remember what Mr. Cobb did but he was a Civilian. His son was a friend of mine and we attended the Munich American Elementary school together. However, the Cobbs lived off-post in Unterhaching. Most of the Civilian families lived off-post but that was still okay.

Then there were civilians (lower case). Nothing was worse than a civilian. Words cannot express the disdain and contempt I had for civilians. From civilians came the two most evil infections the world has ever known: The Draft Dodger and the Career Student.

I will honestly confess that it wasn’t until my early-twenties that my mindset on civilians began to change. I still to this day cannot stomach draft dodgers and career students, but I accept that civilians have a place in this world and, most importantly, a right to exist. You might think I’m joking about this but those that know me well know how little I cared for civilians. I wasn’t a round-them-up-and-put-them-in-camps kind of freak (though I knew some) but I really didn’t care. I would donate blood to help a Non-Dep before I’d shed a tear for a civilian. This may not make sense to you but anyone with my background will understand immediately what I mean. We didn’t tell blonde jokes or Polish jokes or ethnic jokes–we told civilian jokes. How many civilians does it take to change a light bulb? Who cares? Nuke ’em ’til they glow and they won’t need light bulbs. That kind of stuff. But it only applied to American civilians. We loved the Germans and the Panamanians and everyone else. Just the Americans.

Before I continue, let me make a couple of things perfectly clear. First, it wasn’t until I joined the Army that I recognized not everyone was cut out for military service. Some people can’t stand the sight of blood and some people don’t do well under stress. Some people can’t work under someone else’s authority and some people obviously lost a game of human-target lawn darts early in life. I know not everyone is capable of performing the duties required of military service. In fact, there are some people in the service that have no right to be there but that also is a different story.

Second, education is good. Even a degree from a liberal, earth-first, Vegan-loving college is better than dropping out of school because it “got hard”. Life sucks if that’s what you make it. I’ve failed plenty of times in different things but at least I tried.

So, do I think everyone should be in the military? No. I hope that’s clear. But let me tell you two things before I *FINALLY* get to the point of today’s blog.

Hate is a strong word. I understand it’s subtleties and multifaceted meanings. I hate draft dodgers, especially those that fled out of the country during Vietnam. All my friends and the Zeros hated them, too. Being drafted did not automatically mean you were handed a rifle and sent to kill Viet Cong or NVA soldiers. What it meant was that the country in which you were lucky enough to be born required your service. Could you be drafted and killed in some far-away country in a war you didn’t support? Maybe. Could you be drafted and spend your whole tour of duty sweating your ass off painting rocks and picking off leeches at Fort Polk, Louisiana? Maybe. But if you were too much of a coward to consider anything other than running away, we’re better off without you anyway. But you’re still one step above the worst-of-the-worst: The Career Student.

Many cowards who chose to avoid the draft and couldn’t afford to run across the nearest border elected instead to become full-time college students. I honestly am not up-to-speed on what all of the draft laws were of the late ’60s and early ’70s, but I know that if you were a full-time college student, especially if you had a family, you got a reprieve of some sort. Un-Effing-Believable. I disagree with that line of reasoning just as much as I disagree that the draft should only be for men. If the country needs people to serve in the military, draft men and women, not just men. But that again is for another day.

If you are one of those who became a full-time college student to avoid the draft, knowing full-well what you were doing and taking this course of action with the intent simply to avoid the draft, I earnestly pray that someone else did not die because of your cowardice. You might be able to make peace with God, your pot supplier or whomever else you believe in to justify your actions, but there truly is no lower form of life. I consider you no better than a rapist or a child molester. Seriously. The contempt you have for your fellow man by causing them to pay a sacrifice on your behalf is unacceptable. You are the worst type of coward.

When we tuned in to the evening news to see what was happening in the States, what did we see? Flag burning college students complaining about the war. My friends and I hated them. Whether our dads were Regular Army, pre-draft volunteers or drafted, they were all service members who answered the call to serve their country. Did they like the war? None of us did. I can pretty much guarantee you that unless he was dead, you saw your father more in one year than I did in five. The same with my friends. Our dads weren’t there because they were called away. Sometimes one of our dads wouldn’t come home. There was no fanfare, no parade, no community event. One day Chris was at school with you and then he was gone for a few days. By the time word got back to us that Chris’ dad had died they were already on a plane back home. You never said goodbye. They just weren’t there anymore, neither Chris nor his dad. And who was responsible? As far as we were concerned, the flag-burning filth on TV.

I remember that my father returned home from Vietnam once (he served multiple tours there) and was taking a bus from Los Angeles to where we lived in Pasadena, California. Someone on the bus called him a baby killer. Why? Because that’s what all the young, hip, flag-burning, draft-dodging, pot-smoking, acid-dropping hippies did at the time. My dad beat the crap out of him and only because of the bus driver and some of the other bus riders, he didn’t kill him. Why? Today they would call it PTSD but unknown to the loser hippie, my dad had literally been in the jungles of Vietnam not 48 hours before shithead called him a baby killer. Does this matter? Not necessarily, but it will help you understand my position. I was proud of my dad for what he did. No one on TV ever stopped the flag burning. No one ever stopped the name calling. No one ever stopped the student protests (thanks for the effort at Kent State, though). “We”, the military service members and dependents, were always the villains.

One obvious group I excluded here were the conscientious objectors (COs). I respected them. They didn’t run from the draft or suddenly have the need to enroll in school. If they registered (many if not most did), they declared themselves as COs. Did that keep them from being drafted? No. In fact, I met two people when I first joined the service that had registered as COs but were drafted anyway. One was a Chaplain’s Aide and the other was a medic. Neither would carry a weapon or inflict harm to someone else but both answered when their draft number came up.

A conscientious objector is not someone that simply doesn’t want to join the military. To me, a CO is someone who either based on their religion, ethics, morality or combination of all three refuses to harm, much less kill, another. If you call yourself a CO and then punch someone in the face because they call you a coward, you’re not a CO. You’re a coward. A CO is not afraid of serving provided *service* is what’s demanded. Chaplain’s Aide, medic, dental hygienist, there are scores of job specialties where known, self-described COs can and do serve. If you were a CO during Vietnam, registered for the draft and reported to the draft board when they called your number, I have a lot of respect for you. Perhaps the military didn’t need or want you by the time you got there, but you got there. As a civilian (lower case “c”), you’re still head and shoulders above the rest because you took a stand on principles, not on fear. A true CO is not a coward. Jesus Christ was a conscientious objector and no one I know would consider Him a coward.

But on to today’s beef.

I’m certain I’m not the only person who’s heard someone say, “If I’d only stayed in I’d have my twenty by now.” That kind of bugs me. Why did you get out then? You did 12, 13 or 14 years–why did you quit? You can take an early retirement from the military at 15 years in most cases (reduced pay, of course, but you’re still eligible for retirement pay). Why did you leave? What are you not telling us? For what reason were you ineligible for promotion? What did you do that put a bar to reenlistment on your record? What happened? Just saying you “shouldda” stayed is not being honest. I’d like to know why you *didn’t* stay. If it wasn’t your choice, why not tell us what really happened? And don’t lie to me and tell me it was because you went to go work with Delta Force. Two quick questions will establish you’re a liar, so don’t even start. Just tell the truth. Why didn’t you stay?

Another favorite is, “If we were ever attacked I’d be the first one in line to volunteer.” What the frickin frack does that mean? You excuse the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut because it wasn’t “us”. Technically, our Marines were in another country so that doesn’t count. Wow. Okay. So the first time they attacked the World Trade Center (remember that?) didn’t count? What about the USS Cole? Khobar Towers? What about our embassies? What about 9/11? At what point do you draw the line and say “we” have been attacked and now you’ll hold true to your word? Did you lie? Did you ever really intend to join or were you just lying to make yourself feel better? Oh, I know: When you said that you were in school. Now you’ve got a decent job and a family and you don’t want to give that up. What about the soldier on his fourth tour of duty that just got killed by a roadside bomb today? Are his wife and kids less important to him than yours are to you? Come on! Nut Up! If you’re afraid, say so.

There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. Fear is a basic emotion. The difference between fear and cowardice is simple: A person can have tremendous fear yet still try. A coward won’t even try. If you’re afraid to serve because it might cost you your life, let alone your family and your career, admit it. There is honor in admitting fear. But please, don’t lie to me and tell me that “we” haven’t met your conditions for being attacked (at which point you’ll run down to the recruiting station to sign up). Promote yourself up from coward. Admit your fear.

Today’s discussion was the classic, “If I could have joined, I would have” statement. I understand that if you have an emotional or physical impairment that keeps you from entering service in the military, it is what it is. I was seriously injured training with a Ranger unit at an Arctic Warfare school in Alaska. I was told if I did not accept a medical separation from service (with a healthy cash payout to boot) at that time (1985) that I would have to surrender any future medical benefits related to the injury and accept a mandatory separation date twenty years after my initial entry into the service. Unfortunately, my retirement paperwork came through in August of 2001 and we were attacked (again) in September of 2001. That, of course, is another subject.

Not everyone has a debilitating injury. The guy I was speaking with today thought he would get some respect from me by claiming an injury but that wasn’t to be.

In California, we have the California National Guard. I think just about every state has a National Guard, but that’s not important. The California National Guard (CANG) occupies and trains on CANG property. It’s state property, but designated for use by the CANG. We have armories and camps throughout the state. Have you ever thought about this? If the entire unit at your local armory gets mobilized and deployed overseas, what happens to the building? The unit won’t be gone forever. Who maintains the facility? Ah, my friend. The Great State of California has an answer for this: The California State Military Reserve (CSMR). Never heard of them? Neither had I, until I worked with them.

The CSMR has uniforms just like the CANG except the unit patches and name tapes are different. Admittedly, my experience with the CSMR is dated (1990s) but it was staffed with people who answered the call to serve in time of need. There were people of all ages, men and women alike. A guy I worked with for a short time was a captain in the CSMR who could only walk with the use of crutches as he was essentially a paraplegic. He was freakin’ awesome.

I was a Military Intelligence officer with an emphasis on electronic warfare (jamming, direction finding, communications deception, etc.). I was detailed at one point to work as a liaison officer to the CANG’s 40th Infantry Division when they went to the field for their annual two week training exercise. I had a senior NCO with me and together we comprised what was known as an IEWSE (Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Staff Element). We rolled up to the designated rally point for our initial contact as planned.

When the back ramp of the M577 Command Track came down, I was surprised to see a guy with two silver crutches coming down the ramp. Having had the experience of both legs in full casts at the same time myself, I figured this guy had been injured recently. He and I were both captains so we introduced ourselves by first name (though I couldn’t tell you his name if I had to right now). It was obvious by the way he moved that he had not been injured per se, but had a disability. Namely, he couldn’t walk without his crutches.

Yes, we spoke about the mission and what I was there to do and all that crap, which isn’t the point here. I got to speaking with him about how he got to be in the middle of Camp Roberts, California in the back of an armored personnel carrier when he clearly didn’t meet the physical requirements for military service. He told me about the CSMR, what they did and how they functioned. I was fascinated. This guy was a freakin’ genius who didn’t have a disability at all–he just couldn’t walk. To him it was more of an annoyance than anything else, but it really forced me to wrap my head around the concept of being disabled versus having an impairment. This guy couldn’t walk but it didn’t keep him from thinking. It may seem incredibly ignorant now, but I don’t know that the point had ever been made as clearly as it was working with him. He was a great guy to work with and it was obvious the other people in the command respected him very much.

We spoke at length about the CSMR. Basically, if a unit gets deployed, the CSMR will occupy the armory until the unit returns. There’s more to it than that of course, but my point is this: The guy today said his hearing in one ear was too bad to join the Army. If he “couldda”, he “wouldda” but he couldn’t so he didn’t. When I told him about the CSMR and the fact that he could still serve in uniform, the conversation went from motivation to something along the lines of not having the time to be able to do it right now. Very weak.

It really bothers me to speak with someone about military service they didn’t perform. Why waste my time? Honestly, now that I’m older and hopefully more mature, I respect you just for serving in the first place. I don’t care if you painted handrails deep in the bowels of a Navy ship or chocked wheels on an airfield in the middle of nowhere for the Air Force. You don’t have to be a Force Recon Marine or a Ranger. Your willingness to serve puts you in a select group. Your motivation and dedication might define what you do and how well you do it, but it doesn’t define *you*.

I know I will have to endure more shouldda, wouldda, couldda conversations in the future. I enjoy speaking with other people about their specific military experiences. The stuff I did and for which I was trained was fairly unique, highly specialized and not well known. My world was one acronym after another, all of which had specific references to either capabilities, platforms, performance, personnel or missions. If you know the difference between Trailblazer, Teammate, Quick Fix, Rivet Joint or Mohawk, let’s talk. Otherwise, I’d be more than happy to listen you. Everyone who’s served has a different experience, some good, some bad. But please, if you didn’t even try, don’t ask me to talk about my service. You wouldn’t understand.

I have some pretty simple ground rules regarding military service.

If you served, don’t lie about what you did. A liar is a liar. You’re not a Ranger because you bought the tab at the PX, you’ve never served in Delta Force and your sniper team was never sent to assassinate someone. Don’t lie.
If you want to serve, look into it first. Don’t join because Call of Duty is a bad-ass video game and you kick ass and take names like no one else. Serving is not a video game. It’s not a joke. You might have to kill someone. You might die. Worse, you might suffer horrible, disfiguring injuries. Know the risks. Don’t do it because you broke up with your high school sweetheart or because you think it’s your best-bet for a job. Do it because it’s right and you and your family know the risks.
If you don’t want to serve, don’t. But don’t lie about it. Don’t pull the conscientious objector card and then wish death or injury to someone else. Don’t say it’s because we’re not really at war. Don’t say it’s because you’re not able to serve. Tell me you’re a CO and prove it by joining as a Chaplain’s Aide. Tell me you’re afraid and earn a little respect. Don’t lie and make up some reason why you can’t serve. Don’t be a coward.
If you didn’t register for the draft, do so. It’s still the law.
If you’re currently serving and need to speak with someone about what you’ve seen, done, heard or read about, talk to your Chaplain. You don’t have to be ‘religious’ to talk to a Chaplain. For what it’s worth, if you think you might have something like Combat Stress or PTSD, a conversation with the Chaplain could help clarify the issue confidentially. If you go to the TMC, an Aid station or hospital for consultation, that gets put in your record. See the Chaplain first.
If you’re currently serving and want to re-up or separate from service, don’t make a decision without including your family. You need their support either way.
If you’re a civilian and you read this whole thing, thank you. I’m almost fifty now and it’s taken my whole life to accept you as an equal. I wasn’t better than you, it’s just that you didn’t deserve the company of service members and dependants. I’m almost over all of that. Unless, of course…
If you’re a draft dodger or a career student (as defined above), pray. Pray daily. Pray that God will remove the guilt I hope you feel as a result of your selfish, cowardly acts of betrayal to true Americans. When you see the names on the Vietnam War Memorial, I hope you say a prayer that your petty act of self preservation did not result in one single person’s death. Pray that God will forgive you when Jesus reminds you of John 15:13.

Sparky’s Office

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Sparky

Today we take a fascinating trip into Sparky’s office and delve deep into my twisted mind.

This is the house in which I now live. However, since this is the Internet age and there are as many browsers as there are electronic devices connected to the web at any given time, your viewing results may vary. If the picture is too small to discern any real detail, image a small two-story “starter” home with a small yard and a short driveway. It probably looks similar to houses in your neighborhood but mine’s a little older. Again, your browser may tweak the settings slightly but that’s where I live and, at least on my browser, that’s what it looks like.

I used to be one of the most anti-social, confrontational, in-your-face people you’d ever met. I was willing to back up anything at any time with aggressive action, not weak reaction. I was told under no uncertain terms by my spouse that if things didn’t change I would no longer be welcome at home. For those reasons among others, I was asked to leave*.

Knowing things weren’t good, I took an anger management class and really embraced the concepts and tools given during the course of instruction. I changed, but it either wasn’t enough or it was too late to reconcile and return home so I had to find a new home on a very limited budget. I found this place and I really, really like it.

The homeowner lives here also but he put me in charge as the caretaker for the house and its surrounding property. It’s not a bad gig most of the time. The house has multiple rooms and, because we’re on a hill, the homeowner likes me to keep all the lights on for any unoccupied rooms. Why? Although he doesn’t run a boarding house or a licensed hotel/motel (or even a B&B, for that matter) he thinks keeping the lights on encourages people who are tired, lost or hungry to stop by. Which, by the way, is exactly how I found him.

I used to have a lot of issues with that philosophy. It costs a lot of money to keep all the lights on. Moreover, keeping the lights on means you have to keep the rooms clean. It’s much easier to clean a room really, really clean once, turn off the light and shut the door. It’ll stay clean, right? Wrong. If the light’s on I can’t shut the door. Why? Those are the rules. As long as the homeowner is in his house all the rooms are his–even mine. If he wants to keep all the lights on all the time and he’s willing to pay for it, the lights stay on as long as he wants.

Between my revised post-anger-management attitude and the fact that I accept I’m living in someone else’s house where they make the rules, things have changed for the better. People recognize me and come up to embrace me and speak with me in the strangest places. Target, the UPS Store, Subway, a high school play, and even today at Kinko’s. Lots of people recognize me as that guy on the hill with all his lights on, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

If you live in a house with multiple rooms, try this: Open every door in every room and turn on every light in every room or closet. When you get up in the morning, mentally inventory everything in the house. When you’re ready, start walking around. Stop at every room and check that everything’s where it should be and that everything in the room is clean and presentable. If the homeowner walked in with you, would you be proud of the work he charged you with (i.e. keeping his house clean and organized)? If you do that every day for a few days you’ll see it’s not as tough or weird as it sounds.

If someone comes to the house in the middle of the night drawn by all the lights, I’m more than happy to speak with them and try to help them. Do I want them living there? Not necessarily, but if I can help point them in the direction of help I’ll do so.

Have you grown tired of this yet, having figured it out a long time ago? If not, here’s the spoiler: I’m talking about my spiritual beliefs, of course.

God, Creator of all things, gave me a spiritual house. Once I accepted, confessed and believed that He alone was God, He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in my heart as the owner-in-fact of my mind, body and soul. I am the caretaker. However, that has a tremendous amount of responsibility. I decide who (or what) will cohabit with me in the house. If my thoughts and deeds (rooms in the house) are good and honorable, I have no problem keeping the door open for review and the light on so others can see what I’ve done and take note.

If my thoughts and deeds are not honest, wholesome or life-giving, I will probably want to shut the door, turn off the light and pretend it didn’t happen. That’s not setting a good example for me as a caretaker or as a parent.

So, what does this have to do with anything? I had to go to Kinko’s today to buy a hole punch. I got involved in a conversation with someone who recognized me from my church and wanted me to help them with some issues they’ve been having. I am not a pastor, a minister, someone with special healing powers or anything other than who I am. Regardless, this person wanted to talk about an issue with which they’re struggling and “felt in their heart” that I was approachable and could help them if by doing nothing else but praying for them.

A year ago I would have immediately assessed how to drop and incapacitate this stranger who approached me in the parking lot of Kinko’s. Today I held and comforted someone in need who sought my advice and prayer.

Our God is an awesome God.

*For the record, I never–not even once for pretend–yelled at, hit, threatened, belittled, called names or intimidated my spouse. My ignorance made me a stay-at-home, do-nothing jerk. All you He-Man, bad-ass, wannabes out there, I’ve got a plethora of reformed hard core gang members at my disposal who will tell you the same thing: Don’t be like we were. It’s a waste of time.

It Took Guts

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Sparky

At about 7:30 this morning I was engaged in a rather unusual discussion as a group of us met for coffee. An acquaintance of mine admitted an addiction to something they had been introduced to at a young age. The addiction grew over the years and although the family and the first spouse were aware of the issue, it was dismissed. Now on a second marriage, the individual had hidden the addiction from the current spouse out of fear and embarrassment. Until late last week.

Not wanting to hide the issue any longer, my acquaintance admitted the addiction to their spouse. Fast forward past the embarrassment, hurt and crying period they described, we come to today. It did not end as I thought.

My acquaintance told a small group of us everything that had happened from the initial contact to the most-recent event regarding the addiction. We were told of the attempts to self-heal and the subsequent failures. We were told of the life-long hurt and humiliation they experienced. Crying, one of my group came forward and admitted to exactly the same issue.

As we discussed and comforted those two, it became apparent that the addiction they had was no different than many other addictions: drugs, alcohol, pornography, anger, abuse. The key today, though, was this individual having the courage to come forward and admit the issue and ask for help.

As we were breaking to leave, a friend of mine came to me and asked what I thought about what had happened this morning. I related my thoughts and asked if we should have done anything different than what we did. No, I was told, we did everything this person would have hoped to have happen. In fact, how we reacted gave my friend the courage to admit an addiction to me.

Not to make light of it, but I thought I was done with the “Day of Confession” and was taken aback by this new admission. But it got more interesting. My friend not only wanted me to support them while they sought help, I was specifically asked to be this person’s accountability partner. I freely admit I have no idea what an accountability partner is, what they do, or how they establish accountability. All I know is that my friend asked for help and I, as I’m certain you would, freely gave it.

The first thing I was asked to do was read a passage from the bible out loud with my friend, which we did. I was then told that as far as my friend was concerned, they considered me “faithful” and “beyond reproach”. In fact, they felt I was perhaps the only person they could put into those categories. Wow.

Simultaneously, I had a huge feeling of honor that someone would think that highly of me while also feeling a huge weight of responsibility placed on a yoke around my neck. So, if something like this happens to you, do what we did:

First, we discussed the fact that I am no more or less human than my friend. Just because they honored me with very kind and blessing-filled words doesn’t mean I walk the straight-and-narrow path 24/7. I trip and fall just like the next person and, like most of my friends, I choose to get up and keep walking.

Second, I am not responsible for my friend’s behavior. If they back-slide, it is due to a conscious choice on their part and not because I did or failed to do something for them.

Finally, we established that an “accountability partner” is someone who can be called at any time to offer either words of encouragement, support, or meeting for coffee at all hours of the night. For us, an “accountability partner” is not a babysitter, an au pair or a scapegoat. If my friend is in a moment of weakness and needs strength and encouragement, I’ll be there. If they fall prey to their weakness, I’ll be there to lift them up and help them keep on the path they *want* to be on, not the path to which they briefly returned.

So, all this said, by the time 10:00AM rolled around, I learned a lot from and about a group of friends and acquaintances I see quite regularly. I also took on a role to which I personally felt unprepared but to which a friend of mine felt I was solely able to execute. Although I have a lot of mixed emotions about it, I feel confident that will succeed in my duties. Why? Not because I think I can do it myself but because my friend thinks I can do it and has asked for my help.

It goes without saying (to me, at least) that God played a huge roll in the lives of the people I associated with this morning. It took guts for the first person to admit their addiction. It took guts for the second person to join with the first. It took guts for my friend to ask me for help. It didn’t take guts for me to agree. I did what you would have done–helped a friend in need. At least that’s what I hope you would do…

Because I know my friend will read this post, I felt it appropriate to include the bible verse we read today that gave them the courage to approach me and ask for help:

Psalm 101 (NLT)

A psalm of David.

1 I will sing of your love and justice, Lord.

I will praise you with songs.

2 I will be careful to live a blameless life—

when will you come to help me?

I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.

3 I will refuse to look at anything vile and vulgar.

I hate all who deal crookedly; I will have nothing to do with them.

4 I will reject perverse ideas and stay away from every evil.

5 I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors.

I will not endure conceit and pride.

6 I will search for faithful people to be my companions.

Only those who are above reproach will be allowed to serve me.

7 I will not allow deceivers to serve in my house,

and liars will not stay in my presence.

8 My daily task will be to ferret out the wicked

and free the city of the Lord from their grip.

That Grinds My Gears

Musings from a disgruntled human.

Tag Archives: Accountability